The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton #2

Fantagraphics' second volume of Brain Bats of Venus: The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton collects work spanning 1942–1952, showcasing the singular imagination of one of comics' most distinctive voices. The cover says it all: a wide-eyed, horrified man recoils as a massive, sinuous Venusian creature — all tentacles, strange pink flesh, and unsettling organic detail — looms over him, rendered in Wolverton's unmistakable pen-and-ink style. At $44.99, this handsome Fantagraphics package is a thorough and lovingly assembled window into a decade of work that still feels like nothing else in the medium.